Indie Games: After the Gold Rush?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 27, 2012

I guess this is a little bit of a follow-up from yesterday’s post, but allow me to get a little pessimistic for a minute. Except I personally think I’m being realistic. Indie games have been enjoying a gold rush, a boom. Inevitably, after the boom peaks, comes a bust – a contraction. Almost everybody knows […]

Filed Under: Biz, Casual Games, Indie Evangelism, Production - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Rare Arcade Game that Beat Atari in Court Unearthed

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 21, 2012

I’d never heard of the arcade game Meteors before. It’s hardly surprising – it sounds like the game had near zero distribution, but it does have the distinction of being the winner of a landmark legal decision in a lawsuit from Atari. The problem was… this was a game that, graphically at least… seems quite […]

Filed Under: Biz, Retro - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Rumors of Their Death May Be Exaggerated…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 12, 2012

I complain about the “race to the bottom” in terms of pricing for indie games. It’s a problem for indies. It’s possibly an even bigger problem for AAA studios, as an article by Josh Bycer sums up: Are AAA Studios DOA? My answer to the title is actually, “No, they aren’t, but there will be […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Too Much

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 27, 2012

I picked up Dead Island during the Steam Autumn sale. I finally tried to play it. My wife was in the room. I watched part of the intro. The music and the dialog, was pretty laden with profanity. As the f-bombs continued at a rate of one every three seconds, my wife expressed disgust at the […]

Filed Under: Biz, Geek Life - Comments: 16 Comments to Read

The Industry Is In Chaos. What Else Is New?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 14, 2012

The party is over at Zynga. THQ is having trouble paying its bills. Lawsuits are brewing over the epic collapse of 38 Studio. “Free to Play” (a triumph of marketing on par with tiny candy bars getting labeled as “Fun Size!”) is dominating the arena. Consoles are on the decline. Everybody and their cousin seems […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Why the AAA Games Industry is Screwed

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 2, 2012

I almost titled this, “Why the AAA Games Industry is Doomed,” but “Doomed” isn’t quite the right word. Doomed implies that its demise is inevitable. I think, like mainstream Hollywood, it’s not going anywhere for a while. But it is quite possible its best days are behind it. This article illustrates a lot of the […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 16 Comments to Read

When Is It Too Early to Talk About an Indie Game?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 30, 2012

Many years ago, when the blog was young, I was trying to decide how I’d talk about upcoming games in the exciting, growing indie games field that hardly anybody knew about. I faced a little bit of a quandary. At the time, something like 95% (or more) of all indie game projects failed. Early on, […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Torn on Ratings

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 26, 2012

I have two problems with ratings (of the parental guidance variety) for indie games: #1 – The industry standard ratings system was unreasonably painful and expensive for small, indie studios. In a field where the median iPhone game makes less than $1000, spending hundreds or thousands on a rating doesn’t make much sense. #2 – […]

Filed Under: Biz, Politics - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Loot Drop’s “Old School” RPG(s) Canceled

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 20, 2012

Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall have announced that they are canceling their Kickstarter for the Old School RPG which had since been renamed “Shaker.” While they did get an impressive amount of money pledged to the Kickstarter, it clearly wasn’t enough of a trajectory to get to the minimum amount, let alone double that as […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

My Former Boss Goes to Jail

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 19, 2012

In the news today: Utah Game Developer Jailed for Not Paying Wages This was where I worked for a while. It was a period of time when Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon received precious little work, because I was working from 9 in the morning until midnight, one, two, occasionally even  four in the […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: Comments are off for this article

What “Non-Open” Looks Like

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 17, 2012

Do not mock Apple or the current marketing buzzwords, or you will be denied! By itself, it’s a pretty minor thing, and Terry removed the offending comment and has since been accepted for the app store. But I do think this serves as a reminder of the inherent risk of building a business whose existence […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

The Next Great Desktop Gaming Platform?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 15, 2012

It’s no secret to regular readers that I am a desktop gaming junkie. Computer games have always held a higher place in my heart than console games, even when I was a full-time professional making the latter.  That’s not to say I disliked the latter — I was jealous of my friends’ Ataris and Colecovisions, […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 17 Comments to Read

Indie Games: Competition and Authorship

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 8, 2012

One of the complaints about the “Old-School RPG(s)” proposed by Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall was about “celebrity designers” and how they can command so much more Kickstarter backing than other, worthy indies working on similar projects. I thought I’d take some time to address it here. As an aside, there was a complaint that […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Retro Required!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 5, 2012

We game developers are ALWAYS copying past games. We have to. There’s simply far too much that has gone before for us to even be capable of reinventing the wheel.  Even the most innovative games out there borrow from tried-and-true examples. We always build upon a foundation of what has come before us.  Anything else […]

Filed Under: Biz, Design, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

A Disturbing Kickstarter Prediction

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 4, 2012

Next week, my former boss at a video game company will be sentenced. It was going to be this week, but the judge decided that he wanted more evidence to determine if said former boss was consciously and willfully screwing people over, or if he was simply a guy who got caught in a bad […]

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

That Sound You Just Heard Was the Other Shoe Dropping on the Heads of the Publishers

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 20, 2012

Congratulations! You have won. “You” meaning gamers and independent (not necessarily indie) game developers. This has happened, according to Forbes. Publishers have tried to use developers with a reputation (in this case, Obsidian) as false-fronts for Kickstarter campaigns. The interesting part about the article? It’s “Publishers.” Plural. I sincerely doubt these were big, AAA publishers. […]

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 5 Comments to Read



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